No, we've never met. I did not know you were apart of Zydecot. I do know Anthony though. I saw your group last Sunday at Jakes Toadhouse. You guys were great.
--oh. come say howdy some time..
> I'm trying to find some people who I can practice some Zydeco with. I play guitar in a band. The band is not into Zydeco. I want to play accordion now. I bought two accordions and am practicing alone.
--it;s hard to find someone interested. most
people here have never heard of it.
--and if you want to play zydeco, you really need
a band.
because if you play the accordion part to
90% of zydeco songs alone, it doesn;t sound like
much.
--it;s easy to find people who know zydeco but don;t
play music, or vice versa, but not both.
--bill,
our guitar player was a fan and a good guitarist,
plus he used to live in lafayette, used to
dance to beau, boo, john delafose, keith, etc.
--anthony, the rubboardist, is of course
a fan and he has studied the greats.
--doug, the drummer, is just a great drummer.
he was in the cajun band i was in, and
made several trips to LA, he knew what
zydeco could be.
--joe, the bassist, we had to bring him along.
he thought he had heard zydeco but it was mostly
the 12 bar blues based stuff.
he needed a lot of familiarizing but he does
like it and he is a great musician and easily
able to understand other styles and relate
to what he already knows in music.
--other things you will run into is the
problem that you can find
good players, but they like to make money,
they don;t want to rehearse unless there
is some money in it.
--or they want to also play a bunch of junk that
isn;t zydeco, just because they know it already.
--or the guitarist wants to solo all the time
because he thinks accordion is boring.
--as far as money goes, the fun gigs are not well
paid usually, and vice versa. so to keep your
good players interested, you have to play
some money gigs that may not be fun. then you
have to spend time doing songs that are not
as close to zydeco as you might want. or figuring
out how to take a classic song and graft
it onto a zydeco band. which all takes time
and rehearsing. which bores really good players,
if they need to make money to eat..
Re: Re: it;s definitely a challenge to find a band.
Ronald - if you are trying to find folks to jam with, I would think the best place to find folks who are interested in Zydeco music, and hopefully also interested in playing Zydeco Music , would be of course at Zydeco Dances and music events. Go to them, start talking to folks and put the word out at these events that you are learning Zydeco Accordion and looking for others interested in learning and jamming around on the music. You might eventually find some folks of like mind. Once people really like the music, its not a big leap to want to play it, especially if they have played other music in the past.
Cajun/Zydeco "band minus one" practice CDs in various keys
I have a Mel Bay type cd in the works featuring Cajun and Zydeco rythm section "minus one" to enable accordion players and fiddlers to practice or try their hand at the one-man/woman band scene, using these tracks free of performance rights.
The Cajun section features traditionals in C, D, A, G wth upright bass, ti=fer and accoustic guitar and "rythm" fiddle on some of the tracks. Zydeco emphasizes jamming in above keys plus Bb and F with double kick a la Beau Jocque and Keith Frank, aggressive bass and ska rythm guitar found in Wayne Toups as well as more traditional Clifton blues shuffle and straight ahead 4/4. This cd is for all types of Louisiana-style accordion, fiddle. Also comes in handy when trying to get bass players, guitarists and drummers familiar with Zydeco and ZydeCajun.
projected availability is Christmas 2006. If anyone is interested, drop me a line at standremusic@yahoo.ca
Bonne semaine a tous
Jean-Pierre